Crop insurance program bill to protect small farmers filed in Senate

Senator JV Ejercito has filed a bill seeking to automatically place all farmers with eight hectares of farmland and below under the government's crop insurance program.

In filing Senate Bill 390, Ejercito said the measure seeks to develop a crop insurance program that will ensure that small farmers and crops are protected from negative impacts of natural and other disasters.

“The pandemic and the natural disasters that hit the country not only affected consumption but more so the production of adequate food. The country’s vulnerability to disasters and its disastrous effect on agricultural productivity call for a more permanent and long term solution that will ensure that the agricultural sector, especially the small farmers, are protected and given support to sustain and protect their production,” he said in his explanatory note.

“Needless to say, crop insurance is imperative for a country like the Philippines, where farmers are the poorest among the various sectors of the society,” he added.

In a statement, the lawmaker mentioned the destruction left by Super Typhoon Karding across Luzon and some parts of Visayas which inflicted around P3.12 billion worth of damage on the country's agriculture sector.

He also cited the Department of Agriculture's P49.54 million initial estimate of agricultural damage caused by Tropical Storm Paeng.

If passed into law, Ejercito said the measure will require the DA to craft a comprehensive crop insurance scheme for small farmers in coordination with the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC) and in consultation with the Insurance Commission (IC).

Under the bill, the insurance premium of farmers who own or cultivate five hectares of farmland and below will be subsidized by the national government.

Meanwhile, the national government will cover half the insurance premiums of planters owning or cultivating more than five hectares but not exceeding eight hectares of farmland.

“The government has provided subsidies to support the crop insurance program and has been shouldering shares of insurance premiums of insured farmers. However, this has not resulted [in] better outcomes in terms of alleviating the financial burden of farmers,” Ejercito said.

“The current crop insurance program is often characterized by a low penetration rate. Further, the coverage remains optional on the part of self-financed farmers and mandatory only on the part of farmers obtaining agricultural credit under a loan program,” he added.—AOL, GMA News